him, and wrung his soul with the tale of the last things she had been
doing. When she had made him bear it all, she began to turn the bright
side of the affair to him. She praised the sense and strength of Ellen,
in the course the girl had taken with herself, and asked him if he,
really thought they could have done less for her than they were doing.
She reminded him that they were not running away from the fellow, as she
had once thought they must, but Ellen was renouncing him, and putting him
out of her sight till she could put him out of her mind. She did not
pretend that the girl had done this yet; but it was everything that she
wished to do it, and saw that it was best. Then she kissed him on his
gray head, and left him alone to the first ecstasy of his homesickness.

It was better when they once got to New York, and were settled in an
apartment of an old-fashioned down-town hotel. They thought themselves
very cramped in it, and they were but little easier when they found that
the apartments over and under them were apparently thought spacious for
families of twice their numbers. It was the very quietest place in the
whole city, but Kenton was used to the stillness of Tuskingum, where,
since people no longer kept hens, the nights were stiller than in the
country itself; and for a week he slept badly. Otherwise, as soon as
they got used to living in six rooms instead of seventeen, they were
really very comfortable.

He could see that his wife was glad of the release from housekeeping, and
she was growing gayer and seemed to be growing younger in the inspiration
of the great, good-natured town. They had first come to New York on
their wedding journey, but since that visit she had always let him go
alone on his business errands to the East; these had grown less and less
frequent, and he had not seen New York for ten or twelve years. He could
have waited as much longer, but he liked her pleasure in the place, and